So, I crunched the numbers of the PMA defense budget earmarks (raw info found here), and came up with something interesting. Below are the top twenty current House members who have taken money from PMA and placed earmarks in that bill, sorted by cumulative donations. A “#” represents being on the Defense Appropriations Committee at the time, and Republicans are bolded:
| Requesting Member | Total Credited | PMA campaign $ since 2001 |
| Peter J. Visclosky# | $23,800,000 | $219,000 |
| John P. Murtha# | $34,105,000 | $143,600 |
| James P. Moran# | $10,800,000 | $125,250 |
| Norm Dicks# | $12,130,000 | $91,600 |
| Bill Pascrell Jr. | $2,400,000 | $73,200 |
| Mike Doyle | $1,600,000 | $69,400 |
| Loretta Sanchez | $3,200,000 | $60,118 |
| Tim Holden | $3,200,000 | $57,275 |
| Tim Ryan | $1,000,000 | $54,250 |
| Michael E. Capuano | $2,800,000 | $54,000 |
| Chet Edwards | $6,040,000 | $48,734 |
| Silvestre Reyes | $800,000 | $42,300 |
| Christopher Carney | $5,900,000 | $38,500 |
| Paul E. Kanjorski | $4,800,000 | $37,150 |
| Jerry Lewis | $8,000,000 | $34,649 |
| Marcy Kaptur# | $1,600,000 | $34,500 |
| Carolyn McCarthy | $1,000,000 | $31,500 |
| Patrick J. Murphy | $1,600,000 | $29,250 |
| Rodney Frelinghuysen# | $7,300,000 | $29,129 |
| Ander Crenshaw | $1,000,000 | $27,300 |
So, basically, of the top twenty recipients of PMA’s largess that are still in the House, seventeen are Democrats (combined total of about 133 million in earmarks, 1.3 million in contributions). The first current Republican shows up at #16 (there was one Republican in the top ten, but he’s actually gone now, and thus beyond my ability to spank). Of the top thirty (about 185 million in earmarks, 1.5 million in contributions), twenty-two are Democrats. also note that six members of the committee (five Democrats) are in the top twenty, and ten are in the top thirty (six Democrats).
Don’t get me wrong: I’d prefer that the list was zero Republicans, period. But PMA knew which people to hand out the serious money to, and they overwhelmingly had Ds after their names. And, hey, it looks like they got good value, too? Wall Street would kill and eat pandas live on the Disney Channel to get that kind of ROI…
Moe Lane
PS: PMA is going out of business. Gee. I wonder why?
Crossposted to Moe Lane.
